Nearly 2 years after its last update, the excellent Battle Brothers gets ‘a bucket load of fixes’ and free new content

It’s been eight years since the strategy-RPG Battle Brothers—turn-based Mount & Blade meets XCOM, as PC Gamer’s Evan Lahti once described it—made its debut on Steam, and nearly two years since its last update. But despite that passage of time, and the fact that developer Overhype Studios has moved on to a new game called Menace, Battle Brothers isn’t done getting updates just yet.

A new update for Battle Brothers, taking the game to version 1.5.1, rolled out yesterday with not only “a bucket load of fixes accumulated over the last year,” but also some new content. “You heard that right,” Overhype wrote. “There’s actual new content for Battle Brothers, for free.”

The update includes a pair of new legendary locations to the game world, with “unique fights against several entirely new enemy types.” The first location, Abandoned Village, is suitable for companies in the mid-game and can be found simply by exploring the world; the second, more difficult location can only be accessed after the first has been finished. The two spots are connected by a “small narrative told through illustrated events,” and will offer new loot and legendary items for those who can complete them.

To access the new content, you’ll need to start a new campaign, and unfortunately “most” mods won’t work with the update until they’re updated themselves by their authors. So, two choices: You can either ditch all your mods and play the new stuff (or, I suppose, try your luck), or if you really don’t want to do that, keep playing with the previous version of the game and miss out on the new content until your favorite mod makers get caught up.

Unfortunately, because of Steam’s habit of automatically updating games, you’ll have to do a little extra work if you want to stay with the old version: Right-click Battle Brothers in your Steam library and select “Properties,” then go to the “Betas” tab and choose 1.5.0 from the dropdown menu. Steam will download the older version of the game, and you’re back in action.

It’s nice to see older games getting a little surprise love like this, especially when it’s free, but even though it’s a bit long in the tooth at this point Battle Brothers has maintained a dedicated and not-insignificant audience on Steam, where there are typically a couple thousand people playing at any given moment, according to SteamDB—not Marvel Rivals numbers, no, but enough to justify keeping the lights on. And deservedly so: We called it “well-oiled and dependably fun” in our 84% review, a “wonderful game of tactics and sellswords.”

The full Battle Brothers 1.5.1 patch notes are below.

Changelog for 1.5.1.4

• Added two new legendary locations to explore, with associated new enemy types and legendary item rewards, as well as 5 new events. Requires a new campaign.
• Added confirmation dialogue when selling rare items such as named or legendary equipment.
• Added ability to select event options using the 1-6 keys.
• Changed the ‘Fearsome’ perk’s morale check penalty to 15% of the attacker’s Resolve, rather than 20% of (the attacker’s Resolve – 10).
• Changed ‘Strike Down’ skill to stun a target for a total of two turns also if that target has already been stunned for one turn.
• Changed ‘Hook’ skill to also inflict 10 fatigue on the target, bringing it in line with how the ‘Repel’ and ‘Knock Back’ skills work.
• Changed Blacksmith retinue to increase repair speed by 20% (down from 33%), but additionally reduce tool consumption when repairing by 20%.
• Changed Ancient Spire legendary location to reveal locations in addition to uncovering fog of war in a radius.
• Fixed bug allowing players to trigger certain legendary location events without having first discovered the location
• Fixed bug preventing events from firing when traveling to a location or pursuing an attackable party on the worldmap.
• Fixed Alp parties on the worldmap sometimes being briefly visible at day.
• Fixed potentially incorrect visuals for ‘Sallet Helmet’ and ‘Barbute Helmet’.
• Fixed certain quest items getting removed from the player’s inventory in events under certain exceptionally rare conditions.
• Fixed rare issue with wardogs not dying correctly if their former master is already dead.
• Fixed Lorekeeper’s lightning strike not having the intended cooldown.
• Fixed bug treating players as having won the Sunken Library fight when they actually lost under certain conditions.
• Fixed a rare bug that occurred when killing a Lindwurm via its tail with a poison-coated weapon.
• Fixed potential UI glitch with Lindwurms.
• Fixed headless enemies still receiving bonus damage as if their head was hit.
• Fixed certain enemies spawned as part of contracts not receiving an increased chance to become champions based on contract difficulty.
• Fixed Cook not increasing healing rate as intended, and updated wording to better reflect the intended impact on healing.
• Fixed Blacksmith and the camping function not increasing repair speed as much as intended.
• Fixed Blacksmith not preserving gear on dead characters under specific circumstances.
• Fixed bug causing occasional loss of an additional tool when first repairing after buying or looting additional tools.
• Fixed ‘Knock Back’ skill not applying the ‘Overwhelm’ effect, and not building or consuming stacks of ‘Fast Adaptation’.
• Fixed ‘Hook’ and ‘Repel’ skills only consuming but not building stacks of ‘Fast Adaptation’.
• Fixed ‘Hook’ skill not considering elevation correctly in some targeting situations.
• Fixed secondary damage effect of ‘Split Man’ skill not benefiting from some perks and traits.
• Fixed ‘Pound’ skill having extra damage penetration when hitting the nonexistent head of headless enemies.
• Fixed ‘Shoot Stake’ skill potentially triggering unintended morale checks.
• Fixed ‘Shoot Stake’ skill issues with knocking back targets hit.
• Fixed ‘Split Shield’ tooltip on longaxe incorrectly showing a to-hit malus.
• Fixed Throwing Axes showing incorrect armor penetration values in the UI.
• Fixed flails having incorrect to-hit values against shield-bearing targets above certain defense values.
• Fixed combat log entries for the ‘Staggered’ effect showing the wrong duration.
• Fixed various typos.
• Fixed various other minor issues.